Bert Caldwell

One of the Northwest's most expensive and dirtiest generating plants may be sold or shut down if the owners balk at a potential $200 million pollution-control upgrade. Eight utilities own a share of the Centralia Steam Power Plant, which produces 1,300 megawatts of electricity from twin coal-fired units. A open-pit mine sprawls next to the plant in Western Washington. Sulphur dioxide emissions from the facility would violate air-quality standards that will take effect in 2001. Also, much of the haze that frequently obscures Mt. Rainier is blamed on the fumes.

Washington Water Power Co. and Cascade Natural Gas Corp., two of the four largest natural gas suppliers in Washington and Oregon, may share some services under an alliance announced Wednesday. Combining transportation capacity, storage, and information systems, as well as other resources, would allow both utilities to improve efficiency and cut costs, said WWP Senior Vice President Gary Ely. Patricia Grable, WWP administrator for resource optimization, noted the companies have worked together before on some of these issues.

Craig Hart has transformed his father's traditional broker-dealer business into a capital management company. Photo by Jason Clark/The Spokesman-Review

More Spokane exporters than ever before expect to sell more goods overseas this year, but most predict the increase will be relatively small. A survey conducted for the Spokane Regional International Trade Alliance also showed only about one-third of the 183 companies sampled actively promote exports. The rest accept foreign orders as they come through the door.

TCI Cablevision subscribers will pay lower late fees and receive coupons good on movies or a credit on their bill as a result of a settlement approved in Okanogan County Superior Court. Judge Jack Burchard approved the deal Friday over the objections of the Washington Attorney General's office and Washington, D.C., attorney Philip Friedman, who claimed the terms let TCI off the hook lightly for overcharges dating back several years. Friedman said Tuesday he will appeal Burchard's decision.

A reopened Pend Oreille Mine near Metaline Falls could sustain 150 jobs during its expected eight-year life, according to information filed with the Washington Department of Ecology. During construction, 350 would be employed. But Pend Oreille County Assessor Steve Thompson, who has seen other proposals to reopen the 90-year-old mine evaporate, said Tuesday he will not estimate potential tax benefits until there is a decision to go ahead.

Kathy Murray sees a bright future for her company, Enhanced Software Products. Photo by Jason Clark/The Spokesman-Review

A turf war between two utilities serving Spokane escalated Thursday with the disclosure of a proposed electricity rate settlement. Terms, if approved by Washington regulators, will allow Washington Water Power Co. to match prices offered largely to commercial customers by Inland Power & Light Co. where utility distribution lines overlap. Inland has underbid WWP for new accounts because, as a member-owned cooperative, its board of directors sets the rates without review by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission.

Joseph Tucci, left, chairman of Wang Laboratories Inc., and Roberto Colaninno, general manager of Olivetti, discuss Wang's purchase of Olsy. Photo by Associated Press

Timber industry trailblazers. Potlatch Corp. Chairman John Richards, right, and President L. Pendleton Siegel see major benefits from the company's proposed merger with Anderson-Tully Co. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Wednesday's U.S. Supreme Court opinion restricting credit union membership will have little effect in Spokane, in dustry officials said. Only nine of the 34 credit unions in the community have a federal charter subject to the ruling, they said. Of those, all but one or two have single-group memberships - government employees, for example - that were not challenged by the banking industry.

Ghostbusters. Richard Heitman, left, and Dave Clinton have led Inland Power & Light Co. back to respectability after scandals tarnished previous administrations. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Numbers game. Christian Doering, left, was one of dozens of taxpayers who capitalized on IRS Problem Solving Day on Wednesday in Spokane. Photo by Jason Clark/The Spokesman-Review

Starting May 1, residents of Deer Park, Hayden and Hayden Lake will be able to buy wood power by the block - and we're not talking cords. Washington Water Power Co. will sell blocks of wood or wind power for $1 each as part of an experimental program that will give 7,826 of its customers a choice of electricity rates and resources. Idaho regulators approved More Options for Power Service II in January. Washington officials gave their consent a month earlier.

Greg Ney, left, and partner Kurt Campbell have watched Proto Technologies grow over the last two years. Photo by Jason Clark/The Spokesman-Review

Harry Dent Jr.

The proposed settlement in a consumer lawsuit against TCI Cablevision is wholly inadequate, according to a filing made Friday by the State of Washington. In fact, said the objection signed by Paula Selis of the Attorney General's Office, the cable television provider could actually made a profit on the deal negotiated in Okanogan County. The suit was brought in 1994 as a class action by two subscribers challenging TCI's $5 late fee. They lost, but TCI settled the case while it was on appeal. The settlement calls for a roll-back in the late fee to $3. The late-payment period would be extended to 40 days from 30. In Spokane, where fees date back to Cox Cable ownership, late fees are $7.50, but do not kick in for 60 days. Spokeswoman Alison Ruckhaber said the settlement will bring the local system into compliance with those elsewhere in the state. TCI also would grant its 500,000 Washington subscribers three coupons good for a $2.50 discount on pay-per-view movies. TCI estimates the coupons alone are worth $3.8 million. Not so, the attorney general says, because a $2.50 per-movie fee to be paid by subscribers who redeem the coupons will more than cover TCI's cost of providing the service. And only a very small portion of TCI customers will likely use the TCI coupons, the state adds. As for the reduction in late fees, the attorney general says the revenue TCI loses as a result will be more than covered by imposition of a new $15 disconnnect fee. "The agreement purports to lower the late fee," the filing says. "It in fact provides a windfall to TCI." The attorney general suggests Superior Court Judge Jack Burchard consider rulings in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., that imposed a total of $14 million in fines on TCI. Testimony in one of those cases, the filing notes, pegged the actual costs to TCI of late payments as low as 33 cents. "It's the attorneys and TCI who come out on the top of this settlement, not the subscribers," said Selis, noting the two attorneys who represented the class stand to receive fees of as much as $650,000. The filing says the two, Richard Price and Scott Kane, failed to present any evidence that countered TCI's justification of its late fees. Kane said Friday he and Price objected to any late payment penalties, putting the burden of proving a fee was necessary on TCI. The state, Kane said, must convince the judge that he and Price did not do an adequate job in order to step into the case. TCI attorney Brian Everle said Burchard determined subscribers had been properly represented when he made his initial ruling in the case. Everle said the state also was wrong in claiming the disconnect fee is new. In Wenatchee, he said, TCI charges a minimum of $18.75 to roll a truck. "The settlement would result in a reduction of that disconnect fee," Everle said. He said he does not know what fees are charged in other TCI service areas. In Spokane, a $10.53 field collection fee is charged if subscribers bring their account current when an employee is sent to a home to disconnect service, Ruckhaber said. Washington, D.C., attorney Phil Friedman, who brought the TCI case to the attorney general's attention, said the state's filing reinforces his contention the settlement is a bad deal for subscribers. He plans to represent subscribers who objected to the settlement at a March 6 hearing before Burchard. If granted status as an intervenor, he said he will try to get the deal thrown out. He would then file a new case in King County, said Friedman, who has more than 30 cases ongoing against TCI around the country. He said Washington subscribers could receive as much as $11.5 million in cash relief if the final settlement was patterned after the rulings won in Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Washington Water Power Co. has launched a new subsidiary that provides fiber-optic data communications in Spokane and, possibly, Seattle. WWP Fiber is built around cable the Spokane utility put in the ground to link its own substations and other facilities, said Sales Manager Steve Yunker. About a year ago WWP began experimenting with other applications, he said, and formally organized WWP Fiber in October as a subsidiary of Avista Corp., the holding company for its non-regulated operations.

Members of a panel that proposed $159 million in potential budget cuts for the Bonneville Power Administration on Wednesday indicated they might modify reductions in conservation and alternative energy spending. Witnesses at a Spokane hearing on the plan released last month also asked them to reassess other recommendations. "Too many proposals simply shred the fabric of Bonneville," said Bill Arthur, Northwest regional director for the Sierra Club.

A complicated merger announced Monday with Anderson-Tully Co. will add balance and value to Potlatch Corp. timber holdings, Chairman John Richards said Tuesday. The deal envisions a new company, Timberland Growth Corp., that will combine 514,000 acres of Potlatch's mostly softwood timber holdings in Arkansas with Anderson-Tully's 324,000 acres of hardwood in Arkansas and Mississippi. The Anderson-Tully property will be purchased for $410 million from the proceeds of a public stock offering by Timberland Growth, plus borrowings.

Sterling Financial Corp. has agreed to purchase 33 branches in Washington, Idaho and Oregon from KeyBank National Association for $72 million, Sterling Chairman Harold Gilkey said Wednesday. When completed later this year, he said, the deal will put Sterling among the top five Washington banks and thrifts in number of branches. The $585 million in deposits involved in the deal also will boost the total in Sterling vaults by 50 percent compared with deposits on hand at the end of 1997.

Itron Inc. Tuesday reported profits for 1997 and the fourth quarter compared with losses for the year-ago periods. Quarterly revenues set a new record, as did the 12-month order backlog as of Dec. 31, 1997. Net income for the quarter was $3.3 million, or 22 cents per share, compared with a loss of $2.3 million, or 17 cents per share, a year earlier.

Washington customers of TCI must respond quickly if they want to stop a deal that could deny them millions in refunds, a Washington, D.C., lawyer said Tuesday. Phil Friedman said the cable television provider has negotiated a "sweetheart deal" with an Okanogan County attorney that does not adequately roll back late fees, or return past overcharges.

Inland Northwest Bancorporation has agreed to purchase Hege Company Inc., a locally owned mortgage company that has been in business in Spokane since 1906. Terms were not disclosed, although Inland President Fred Schunter said the transaction would involve both stock and cash. He said the deal should close by the end of the month. The agreement would fold Hege, which has done business as Creative Mortgages Inc., into a new subsidiary of Inland, INB Mortgage Co. Inc.